Notebooks of the Young Wife (9 page)

‘Jane, please. And you could well be right, Ama.’ The learned doctor really didn’t go with such a down-to-earth conversation, and besides, I was trying to digest the implications of the remark. Assuming the driver wasn’t one to skulk about in the night listening at doors, the boy’s taste for a hot bottom was no secret, at least at Ardingley End.

‘I’m an awful snoop. To be honest, I fancied the pants off him myself, but after that bad start there was no chance. If you’re in with one I’m plain jealous.’

‘I’ll keep you informed if you like. But now I’ll have to rescue from his library search the one whose ears should be glowing red by this point.’

She flashed me a smile that demolished any defences I had left, and touched my arm. ‘Look, Jane, call in on me in the workshop. Anytime, I’m usually alone there. I mean, don’t get the wrong idea – I play both ways. Especially if there’s a cane about the place.’

‘So do I, Ama, so do I. And you may expect a visit.’ I watched her go, head a-whirl with the adrenaline rush of a sudden proposition no less suddenly accepted. The blue cotton of her boiler suit clung to the curve of the hips and the buttocks bounced enticingly as she walked across the yard. And the c-word had been placed very deliberately on the table. Only after the goddess had disappeared completely from view did I become earthbound enough to turn and head slowly away in the opposite direction.

Back in the study I found the subject of our conversation sitting with his tousled head in hands. A pose, possibly, for the benefit of my entrance, but suddenly I felt for the strange creature we’d been discussing. He was down in the dumps after a search that had borne no fruit and I pulled him gently to his feet.

‘Let’s see the state of you.’ I eased down his trousers and turned his backside to the desk lamp. There were a couple of faint dark smudges but otherwise no ill effects of cook’s heavy hand. ‘You’ll do, my lad,’ I said, noting the semi-erection my inspection had produced, ‘and don’t fret. We’ll think of something. Of course it would have helped if you’d seen where the things were kept, but we can deal with that lapse at the end of the day. And if you could find something like a leather paddle – to save my hand – that would put you right back in my good books.’ At these words the cock had become its fine upstanding self and I gave his bottom a slap.

‘Put that thing away, boy, and go and get some lunch,’ I ordered. ‘You may report to me later.’

‘Yes, Miss.’ With the cheeky grin back in place he made for the door while I sat in the desk chair and tried to get the brain working. I’d not foreseen the diversions that would be on offer within the confines of a secluded country house, albeit one with an extensive collection of old pornography. In less than twenty-four hours I had been publicly birched, drawn into the spanking ‘n’ wanking games of a teenage lad, and after frolicking with a maid half the night been given an s/m come-on by the beautiful mechanic. No doubt an uncertain future had something to do with the frenetic living for the moment, but that didn’t make it any less distracting. Not that I was actually complaining...

Suddenly there was a raucous
brrr-brrr-brrr
! that brought me to myself with a start. The noise was coming from the black telephone receiver I’d marked down as a museum piece, and I grabbed it before it went off again. When I said hello a voice said, ‘Incoming call, I’ll put you through,’ and there was Samantha on the line.

‘Jane, is that you? I wanted to tell you at once that the books are splendid. Absolutely top notch. To find such explicit dealings between women from such an early period is a real tonic. So the deal is on, my dear, if you are still so minded. I gather from your assistant – such a comely girl! – there may be some half-dozen more titles for us, and then the rest is yours.’

‘That’s very good, I’m glad you’re pleased. And whatever Tamsin said goes.’ I wondered briefly if Samantha had acted in any way on the PA’s ‘comeliness’ before she went on to give me news that took my full attention. Apparently the debts Sir Montague left behind were much greater than initially supposed and the sale of the house itself would be required to settle them. With some good fortune a very distant but very wealthy cousin had been found in the US: a Southern patriarch keen to inspect a possible family seat, and in all likelihood sooner rather than later. Since a library of antique (if pornographic) books would no doubt be seen as a desirable asset, it was rather important that the contents of the study be spirited away before that date.

‘Mr Wilkes, who is handling the estate, an admirable man who shares an interest in such materials finding a good home, is contriving to make the items appear to have been sold while Monty was still with us. They will be identified simply as the, ah, Rare Books Collection, but naturally, the details of what exactly it consisted of will prove to have been lost.’

I chuckled at the nod to my own department at the BL, and was still smiling when I replaced the receiver on its stand a few moments later. For a practicing domina of a severe disposition, the Archive’s Director had a remarkable way with the pillars of middle English society. And thanks to her information, my principal duty was all but accomplished: I needed simply to phone Tamsin in the morning and arrange for the books and papers to be picked up. If I knew my organisation, the fact that a substantial free acquisition could be at risk
in situ
would have the job done by the weekend. However, I’d taken on a personal mission in my short time at the house: to obtain for myself the records made by the self-styled
uxor studiosa
. And that aim was no further forward.

Then there was a tap on the door and Molly’s head appeared. ‘Er, Jane,’ she said diffidently, ‘I don’t mean to disturb you—’

‘Please do. It’s exactly what I need. What’s up, sweetie?’ The pretty face was wearing a rather downcast expression.

‘I just got a big lecture from old Jencks. “Telling tales out of school” she calls it – that’s
me
telling
you
about that college woman visiting.’ Obviously the housekeeper had not been impressed with Tamsin’s questions on the subject. But how did she know the informant was Molly? The maid looked sheepish.

‘I don’t reckon she did know, but I gave it away. Never was much good at porkies.’

‘Being an accomplished liar can be useful, but the best people often can’t hack it. You’re in good company.’ When I didn’t manage to raise a smile, I guessed that telling off wasn’t the end of the matter. ‘So I get the impression there’s more?’

‘Too right. I’ve been sent to the woods, the part where all the birch trees grow. And I don’t have to explain that to you, do I?’

I was outraged. ‘That’s just not right, Molly. She’s the one up to the funny business, not you. I ought to go and—’

‘And she’s the one who either puts in a word with the new master or she doesn’t. So just leave it, Jane, or you’ll make things worse. But if you wanted to come and keep me company that would be nice, and you can learn how the things are put together too.’

It wasn’t going to help to say anything about who the new employer might be, so I kept mum and followed Molly to get kitted out with a pair of wellington boots.

The afternoon sun was warm as we walked up the slope at the back of the house, but among the trees there was a dank carpet of dead leaves underfoot. Not much was yet in leaf and the slender birch wands Molly began to cut were full-budded. I thought, I’m afraid with a degree of
schadenfreude
, that she would in due course be stinging just as much as I’d been the day before. After watching the curved blades of the large secateurs at work, I chipped in that I’d heard the inclusion of an ash plant of a similar thickness gave the whole thing an extra bite.

‘Very likely true, Jane, but I can do without suggestions like that when it’s my bum that’s to be on the block.’ She was looking at me in a kind of playful pique that sent shivers through me. I moved in close and squeezed the article in question.

‘And a very tasty bum it is too. Will it be a private affair, or can I sit in?’ Molly stuck out her tongue.

‘You’re just one of them – what’s the word? – sadists. Like that Marquis fellow. You want to see a poor girl get a good hiding.’

‘Oh yes, please. Especially when she’s as sweet as you. If you let me watch I’ll give these cheeks the best in aftercare.’ By that time I had the top button of the jeans open and a hand down the back roaming over the chubby globes.

‘Well, it’ll just be herself. Cook wouldn’t go along with something like this. But there will have to be someone to hold me down.’

‘Better and better. Consider the position filled.’ I was worried I might be showing a bit too much relish, but Molly didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she kissed me hard and when I eased her pants right down the vulva was slippery to my touch. While she knew as much as anyone how painful it was going to be, the girl was aroused by talk of the birching to come.

Spotting a handy tree stump, I shucked my own jeans down and pulled her across my knee so we were bare skin to bare skin. With the legs spread I was able to stroke the wet folds from the clit down with one hand, while the other kneaded the buttock cleft. Soon she was moaning and in short order the orgasm was on her. While it subsided I sucked on the fingers that ran with her juices and then she pulled me up and got down on her knees, and a very few seconds of her sucking and nibbling had me jerking about as though I’d been given a mains wire to hold while the other end was stuck up my arse. Whatever one may say about rural life, my brief exposure to it was doing no harm at all to the quality of my orgasms.

In the late afternoon as we trooped back with the bundles of cuttings I asked what my companion knew of the boy’s history. Mindful of how Ama had at once seen the sexual heat beneath my disinterested pose I was ready to drop the subject, but if it bothered Molly she didn’t show it.

‘Not much, to be honest. I expect you found out he isn’t keen on his name, well, it’s like he wanted to leave a lot else behind as well. The Master took him in not last year but the year before.’

‘Took him in?’

‘Yeah. He was in some trouble with the law and the magistrate agreed to let him off if he was given a home here. Well, I suppose it was probation, like, ‘cos he had to report in every few weeks. But not any more.’

‘Any idea what he’d done?’

‘Lord knows. I heard he was living rough for a bit. Whatever it was, he soon settled in here – if you can call being a shiftless layabout settling in.’ I was a touch taken aback by Molly’s dismissive assessment of the lad, but there was no chance to respond. We had reached the gardener’s shed and it was time for further coaching in the ways of the birch.

‘We’ve got a decent collection here, all about the same thickness. So when they’re like this you take five of them, no more no less – that’s how
we
do it anyway – and line them up straight as you can. Then you get a hold of the ball of twine and bind up anything from a quarter to a third.’ I watched her at work, thumb on a loop of the cord that served to pull through the end at the finish. Absorbed in passing on a practiced skill, the maid had forgotten for the moment whose bottom it was that would be wasting her creation painfully into tatters.

With a little help I managed a passable effort myself, and then Molly did up a third. ‘Just in case one comes apart,’ she explained, ‘you’ve got a spare. Not that it will if you do it right.’ In a corner stood a tub I remembered from the Hall, and Molly thrust the business ends of the rods into the liquid, swirling them round.

‘So how long do you leave them to, er, pickle?’

‘Could be a week or more, but these’ll be coming out day after tomorrow. That’s plenty time.’ She shook her head resignedly but there was the hint of a smile. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking of; we should have botched them up a bit. As it is, these are too bloody good by half.’

‘Don’t worry, sweetie, I’ll be holding your hand.’

‘Holding me down, you mean. That’s not quite the same thing.’ But despite the words she was grinning and I took the chance to get a hand back down her jeans and kiss her. There was a good hour before dinner and I was suddenly of a mind to bolt the door and take advantage of our privacy.

The meal was a disappointment after the convivial lunch earlier in the day. The lustrous Ama seemed preoccupied, saying little and none of it to me, and cook was grumpy and taciturn. Perhaps the addition of the groom and two other unidentified males was responsible, or perhaps there had been an incident of which I knew nothing. Whatever the cause, I was glad to make my excuses as soon as I could and escape to the seclusion of the study.

Once there, however, I found it difficult to settle to anything. First I began to check some of the early acquisitions against the entries in the log kept by the original Montague. The
Gonosologium Novuum
of 1709 that he mentioned was there, as was the
Satyrica
Sotadica
in an edition of 1720, both handsomely bound in what looked like calfskin. The rare
Flagellationis Scientia
of 1695 was another treasure of the pseudo-medical variety with its straight-faced recitation of the physiological benefits of regular whipping. I knew it only by reputation, and its fine engravings depicting callipygian maids and matrons frolicking under birch and lash kept me occupied for some minutes. So did another handful of titles – all present and more than correct – but after a while the pointlessness of what I was doing came home to me.